April 30, 2017

In the feeding frenzy surrounding Donald Trump's first 100 days that is the MSM's meme du jour, few have taken notice of his opposition and their relative progress since January 20th, 2017.

What have they done, actually?

Well, I guess it can be summed up by one of my favorite You Tube snippets:

But, before I enlarge on this thesis, I would like to call to your attention the words uttered by Trump's opponent last year. This, in its stark rudeness, were the sentiments uttered by Madame Hippo Flanks a scant 227 days ago and what passed -- at the time -- for political commentary by the left:

"I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and don't get complacent, don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, he's done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

At the time, I was offended by this classless woman's assertions but, in the heat of a political battle, it did not seem as much of an affront as it does now when viewed in the wake of the sheer, unadulterated hatred, evil, childishness, and downright lawlessness exhibited by Donald Trump's opposition. And, in all honesty, if any group is worthy of being condemned to a basket, box, prison cell, or a general hole in the ground, it would seem to be these folks.

But they soldier on, united in their mutual hatred of Trump, the laws of this country, and the good honest people who got tired of their crap and gave them the heave ho back in November.

What do the Democrats have to show for these first months of the Trump era?

Little. Trump's defeats have not come at the Democrats' hands. Those setbacks have been self-inflicted (over-the-top tweets, hastily written policies, few sub-cabinet nominations) or have come from the judiciary (the travel ban, the sanctuary cities order) or from Republican infighting (health care). Deregulation, Keystone pipeline, immigration enforcement—Democrats have been powerless to stop them.

Chuck Schumer slow-walked Trump's nominations as best he could. In fact his obstruction was unprecedented. But the cabinet is filling up, the national security team in place. On the Supreme Court, Schumer miscalculated royally. He forced an end to the filibuster for judicial appointments, yet lost anyway. If another appointment opens this summer, and the Republicans hold together, the Democrats will have zero ability to prevent the Court from moving right. No matter what he says in public, Schumer can't possibly think that a success.

We tend to forget that Trump's sub-cabinet nominations are still not complete and Schumer and his cronies are playing their four corner offense in a vain attempt to run out the remaining -- what? -- four years? Good luck with that.

It seems that this sense of entitlement and the divine right to governance is part of the genetic structure of the left and when wrested from them, they react like spoiled children.

The prevalent anti-Trump sentiment obscures the party's institutional degradation. Democratic voters despise the president—he enjoys the approval of barely more than 10 percent of them—and this anger and vitriol manifests itself in our media and culture. So Rachel Maddow and Stephen Colbert enjoy a ratings boom, the women's march attracts a massive crowd, the New York Times sells more subscriptions, and Bill Nye leads a rainy-day "march for science." The desire to ostentatiously "resist" Trump leads to better-than-expected results for Democratic candidates in congressional special elections. But the candidates don't win—or at least they haven't yet.

Democrats feel betrayed. The Electoral College betrayed them by making Trump president. Hillary Clinton betrayed them by running an uninspiring campaign. James Comey betrayed them by reopening the investigation into Clinton's server 11 days before the election. Facebook betrayed them by circulating fake news. This sense of resentment isn't so different than the sort Democrats attribute to Trump supporters: irritation at a loss of status, vexation at changed circumstances. The despondence of a liberal is alleviated when he sees throngs of protesters, hears Samantha Bee, scrolls through Louise Mensch's tweets.

Makes him feel better.

It is similar -- but on a much grander scale -- than when Obama was elected and we conservatives took to our blogs, meetings, and tea parties. But I cannot remember a single demonstration (save for the Tea Party assemblages) nor bitter outburst of public vitriol on the scale of all the childish left today. (Also, while nowadays distressing on one level, it is certainly a bumper crop of schadenfreude that I absolutely revel in.)

But I digress.

But [this bitter liberal's] party is in tatters, reduced to 16 governors, 30 state legislative chambers, a historically low number of state legislative seats, 193 members of the House, 46 senators. The Democrats are leaderless, rudderless, held together only by opposition to Trump. The most popular figure on the left refuses to call himself a Democrat while sitting alongside the newly elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. That chairman, dirty-talking Tom Perez, represents a professional, technocratic class that supports Wall Street and globalization as long as there is room for multiculturalism and social liberalism. That is a different strategy from both the 50-state approach of Howard Dean, Rahm Emanuel, and Schumer that brought Democrats control of Congress in 2006, and the anti-Wall Street, protectionist, single-payer left of Bernie Sanders. Perez fights with Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi over whether there is room for pro-lifers in the party—Perez thinks not. Pelosi enjoys the distinction of being an American political figure less popular than Donald Trump.

What is the Democratic agenda? What does the party have to offer besides disunity, obstruction, incoherence, obsession, and obliviousness? They haven't rallied behind a plan to fix Obamacare or an alternative to the president's tax proposal. They seem dead set against enforcement of immigration laws, they seem opposed to any restrictions on abortion, they seem as eager as ever to regulate firearms and carbon dioxide. It's hard to detect a consensus beyond that. Banks, trade, health care, taxes, free speech, foreign intervention—these issues are undecided, up for grabs.

Sadly all they have is the pathetic hope that their beloved Magic Negro will return from his seemingly endless vacation somewhere and do something -- anything -- to right this ship and restore them to their former safe spaces with their binkies and puppy videos and cookies and milk. But, I fear the aged warrior has other retirement plans involving self adulation adn scraping up $400,000 retainers from Wall Street overlords to prolong his self-indulgent reverie.

For eight years President Obama supplied the Democratic message, provided the Democrats answers to public questions. Now Obama himself is under fire for agreeing to deliver a $400,000 speech to Cantor Fitzgerald. He is already a figure of the past: His hair gray, his legacy under siege, his time spent lounging on Richard Branson's yacht or listening desultorily to Chicago undergrads. The energy is with Bernie, with the identity-politics movements, with the paramilitary "antifa" bands, and each one of these overlapping sects are outside the party establishment Obama represents.

That establishment is just as befuddled as its Republican counterpart at the current political scene. "I don't know what's happening in the country," Hillary Clinton is said to have told a friend at some point during the recent campaign. This apprehension of distance between herself and the everyday lives of her co-nationals is one of the most perceptive observations Clinton has ever made. Her problem was she never figured out the answer, never came to realize that the various guesses she and Obama and other professional Democrats have wagered about "what's happening in the country"—racism, sexism, nativism, gerrymandering, Citizens United, Fox News Channel and talk radio, Russia—are insufficient. What the Democratic Party has yet to understand is that its social and cultural agenda is irrelevant or inimical to the material and spiritual well being of their former constituents. And until the Democrats recognize this fact, their next 100 days will be no better than their first.

April 29, 2017

The US Stock Markets are at record highs and millions of Americans are benefitting in their retirement savings accounts.

The DOW daily closing stock market average rose more than 15% since the election on November 8th. (On November 9th the DOW closed at 18,332 – on March 1st the DOW closed at 21,115).

Since the Inauguration on January 20th the DOW rose 6.5%. (It was at 19,827 at January 20th and reached 21,115 on March 1st.)

The DOW took just 66 days to climb from 19,000 to above 21,000, the fastest 2,000 point run ever. The DOW closed above 19,000 for the first time on November 22nd and closed above 21,000 on March 1st.

The DOW closed above 20,000 on January 25th and the March 1st rally matched the fastest-ever 1,000 point increase in the DOW at 24 days.

The US Stock Market gained $2 trillion in wealth since Trump was elected!

The S&P 500 broke $20 Trillion for the first time in its history.

In the history of the DOW, going back to January 1901, the DOW record for most continuous closing high trading days was set in January of 1987 when Ronald Reagan was President. The DOW set closing highs an amazing 12 times in a row that month. On February 28th President Trump matched President Reagan when the DOW reached a new high for its 12th day in a row!

President Trump decreased the US Debt in his first 100 days by $100 Billion. (President Obama increased the US debt in his first 100 days by more than $560 Billion.)

The US Manufacturing Index soared to a 33 year high in this period which were the best numbers since 1983 under President Reagan.

President Trump added 298,000 jobs in his first month alone (after President Obama said jobs were not coming back!).

Housing sales are red-hot. In 2011, houses for sale were on the market an average 84 days. This year, it’s just 45 days.

Illegal immigration is down 67% since President Trump’s Inauguration.

NATO announced Allied spending is up $10 Billion because of President Trump.

After being nominated by President Trump, Constitutionalist Judge Neil Gorsuch was confirmed and sworn in as Supreme Court Justice in early April.

..and the President has signed 66 executive orders, memoranda and proclamations as of April 19th, including:

Notifying Congress of a strike on Syria after it was reported that the country used gas on its citizens.

Dismantling Obama’s climate change initiatives.

Travel bans for individuals from a select number of countries embroiled in terrorist atrocities.

Enforcing regulatory reform.

Protecting Law enforcement.

Mandating for every new regulation to eliminate two.

Defeating ISIS.

Rebuilding the military.

Building a border wall.

Cutting funding for sanctuary cities.

Approving pipelines.

Reducing regulations on manufacturers.

Placing a hiring freeze on federal employees.

Exiting the US from the TPP.

Astounding considering the headwinds from fartknockers like these:

But probably THE MOST SIGNIFICANT THING IS THAT IT WAS DONALD J. TRUMP'S FIRST 100 DAYS AND NOT HILLARY CLINTON'S FIRST 100 DAYS!

April 27, 2017

..studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University (where he took an astronomy class taught by Carl Sagan)[16] and graduated with a BS in mechanical engineering in 1977.

..received a degree in chemistry from Washington State University, a degree in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in the early 1980s, and a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney in 1982. was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983.

April 25, 2017

April 24, 2017

April 23, 2017

So, here I am stuck in the eddies and backwaters of a life prepping for retirement. Work abounds with challenges and unparalleled opportunities to excel on the bell lap of my professional life, political events are whizzing past my ears like rounds in a firefight, the war with anti-fa is heating up, and all I can do is squeeze a few moments out of a Sunday afternoon when I should taking a nap.

(Hey, I did say I was prepping for retirement, right?)

Anyway, a while back in the recent mists of time, these two folks brought out what has been billed as the ultimate tell-all of the train wreck that was the Clintoon campaign:

Well, I was all over that like flies on a steaming turd loaf..until I saw the authors (Jonathon Allen, Amy Parnes) interviewed on the Fox Business News' Kennedy show about a week ago.

Their undynamic personalities coupled with the fact that I could not find anything on wiki about them and little else on the internet except a conflation of Jonathan Allen with a mid-level NFL player and a stock bio for Ms Parnes and an article about what she wears to work.

As the title of the post implies, I am passing on an opportunity to wring out my PayPal account for a copy of this political bodice-ripper. Nothing personal, but the interview and disclosures, teases, and snippets from the book and the authors' personalities did not exactly explode across the TV screen like a Mt Pinatubo eruption. Additionally, they seemed as though they felt a bit sorry for the woman who was -- without a doubt -- the most documented and least honest individual to ever run for POTUS. All in all, the interview left me as cold as a chilled plate of liver aspic.

So, if you're in the throes of putting together a steamer about how Madame Hog Flanks blew the big one, let me make a recommendation. Throw out all of the sympathetic anecdotes and cutesy pie shit. Lose the maudlin end-of-an-era summation and flush the treacly sentimentality down the crap chute.

Most of us want verifiable tales of a shrieking psycho-bitch hurling flower pots, tea services, chairs, ottomans, couches, andirons, and coal scuttles across the room at husbands, aides, interns, SS agents, and the hired help. A bonus would be any narratives or pictures of Clinton ending up the evening face down on the carpet in a pool of her own vomit sleeping off a Pentobarbital buzz.

Also, We would pretty much shell out for anything rife with gossip about the incompetence of Mook and Podesta and Palmieri and/or them in a four-way with some doe-eyed ingenue or farm animals. (Pictures of Clinton or Podesta wearing strap-ons and mercilessly back-dooring Mook or them watching Mook get fellated by a rhino would be a welcome treat. Stories/pictures/videos of either Clinton being urinated upon by Russian hookers or Putin would be a real plus!) A real top attraction would be irrefutable evidence that that $13,000-coat-wearing bag lady put out a hit on that kid from Omaha for leaking the emails to the guy in the Peruvian (or Ecuadorian or Uruguayan) embassy.

So, unless you got any of that, I will be doing my imitation of that Southern California city where the Rose Bowl resides: Pasadena.

April 9, 2017

April 7, 2017

So, I am not going all Neocon and shit. I agree with most that "one and done" and sending a stern message to all the bad operators in the world (I'm looking at YOU, Asian Asshole with the bad haircut) should be sufficient without getting involved in the ME again. But, there is a striking difference between the poses struck in the Trump Sit Room and The Lawn Jockey POTUS's.

Here's The Donald's:

..and here's King Putt's:

One looks like an executive presiding over a board meeting and the other -- well -- looks like a janitor who got invited in to empty the ash trays and shit.